Neoliberal watch: This is going to be a bumpy ride

Moloch. From the Oedipus Aegyptiacus of Athanasius Kircher, 1652. Wikimedia.

Remember Kenneth G. Langone, the Home Depot founder warning that it was Kristallnacht time for our beleaguered billionaires?

“I hope [the supposed ongoing shift to populism is] not working,” Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot and major GOP donor, said of populist political appeals. “Because if you go back to 1933, with different words, this is what Hitler was saying in Germany. You don’t survive as a society if you encourage and thrive on envy or jealousy.” (Slate, March 2014)

Or proposing to shut down Pope Francis with all this inequality talk with a bribe of an unspecified number of millions (somewhere between one and nine)?

In an interview on CNBC on Monday, Home Depot founder and devout Catholic Ken Langone said that the Pope’s statements about capitalism have left many potential “capitalist benefactors” wary of donating to the Church or its fundraising projects.

According to Langone, an anonymous, “potential seven-figure donor” for the Church’s restoration of St. Patrick’s Cathedral is concerned that the Pope’s criticism of capitalism are “exclusionary,” especially his statements about the “culture of prosperity” leading to the wealthy being “incapable of feeling compassion for the poor.” (Daily Kos, December 2013)

Meet Ken Langone, education reform maven and Andrew Cuomo supporter:

Kenneth G. Langone, a founder of Home Depot who sits on a prominent charter school board, gave $50,000 to Mr. Cuomo’s campaign last year. He said that when the governor asked him to lead a group of Republicans supporting his re-election, he agreed because of Mr. Cuomo’s support for charter schools.

“Every time I am with the governor, I talk to him about charter schools,” Mr. Langone said in an interview. “He gets it.” (New York Times)

Are you just a little disturbed by the fact that this man has Governor Cuomo's ear? Do you see anything you understand about the governor starting to add up here? Do you wonder just a little bit whether the charter school movement has anything to do with ritual sacrifices to the beast-headed god Moloch? Asking for a friend.

Image via the DC Wreck.